Game Over
by Humida
Summary: Claire is infected with the T-virus and Leon seeks a cure, hoping Ada may have the answers he seeks before it's too late. A resident evil short


Leon jerks the steering wheel hard to the right, looking towards the GPS for the address to the post office building in Raccoon City. The wheels on the pavement screech loudly, sparks flying and bits of gravel spraying into the sky. Several gaunt faces turn towards him as the beams from the headlights hit them, their eyes glazed over without emotion. Their arms hang limply at their sides, mouths hanging open as if they're too heavy for their jaws to hold up properly. Which may well be the case, the smell many give off is thick and pungent, smelling heavily of rot weeks old in decay if not more. They lunge haphazardly at the vehicle, fingers scrabbling over the sides as it rushes past.

He looks over the masses of undead on the busy intersection, cops mixed in with civilians as often as not and wonders how it really could have gotten so bad? How it could have gone to shit so fast without anyone noticing? All of them look on with blank faces, arms reaching out to him. A horror story made real and his first day in Raccoon as a police officer. Perfect. He wishes he'd never taken the transfer from his former precinct to this one. It really is beyond...

The cruiser slams into the side of one of the creatures, the sound of flesh hitting metal well apparent, jarring Leon from his thoughts. He watches from the rear view mirror as the body rolls backwards on the floor and almost jumps when a woman's face appears starring back at him from the back seat with nearly pale, dead eyes. The car screeches loudly as he takes a rough turn to the left and the woman moans, her voice sounding pained.

Leon grits his teeth, slowing the car as he curses himself for his panic. He needs to be more careful, Claire is very sensitive right now and movements like that can be very hard on her body. "Sorry Claire," he whispers. "I'll try and be more careful next time."

She tries to mouth a reply but it comes out more like a distressed moan. Her skin is pale and her once kept brown hair hangs wetly over her scalp, sticking to the skin. But most telling of all, the color of her eyes seems to be readily fading. She stares at him with those dead eyes and he wonders if she's actually seeing him at all?

Gone is the young college woman he'd first encountered with a brash personality, jumping into a city of undead to search for her brother. Gone is her jubilant voice and high spirited action with quick thought and wit. In its place is the thing behind him. All thanks to a bite which went through the leather of her glove during an attack not half an hour ago. The bite pierced her skin before he shot the thing in the face, but too late. She'd been bitten. She has no missing pieces, just an indentation of teeth swollen red, but that seems to be enough for the virus to get through. One mistake, he thinks, and this happens.

He wipes away at his face, holding back the tears that want to run down his cheeks. He can't let himself cry, that won't help Claire. He just... needs to get the antidote.

He grips the steering wheel hard, his knuckles going white, fighting back the tears that still wish to push through his defenses. No, it's still Claire, he thinks, he still has time. But he has to find a way to save what's left of her and that time is running out!

In desperation he looks at the photo of the woman at the side of the dash that he picked up from the file in the police department. "Come on Ada," he whispers, fingering the picture. "Be there. We need you."

Ada Wong is a .. Friend he's met while on his brief tour through this hell of a City. A mysterious Asian woman with a stylish bob cut and a long red dress with dark, seductive eyes. A smile always seeming on her lips that doesn't quite reach those eyes, which seem somehow very cold...

He doesn't know much about her, but she's gotten around and found information on different sources that explain how the outbreak came about says there's more to her than meets the eye. He suspects maybe she'll know where a location for a possible cure to the virus coursing through Claire's body might be. She has to! Plus, considering Claire's condition, Leon has to admit he's also worried about Ada's own state. She's an adult, sure, but he can't help but worry. After all, look at what happened to Claire. And with the hospital that had the original cure destroyed by Umbrella...

"Shit," he curses as he sees the post office, the voice from the vehicle sounding in its electronic female form just as he is passing it. He turns the vehicle around roughly to the right, slamming through the wire mesh of fencing and screeches to a halt in front of the nondescript building. It looks like a longish cement building with a flat ceiling and a massive if empty parking lot. Dim lights dot the area, illuminating it so he knows it's free of undead, for now at least..

The building looks like nothing that would stand out. Certainly not where a cure would be located, but he's hoping that's where it's different. After all, the hospital had a BOW facility beneath it, why can't a post office have something similar? He narrows his eyes, considering this and shuts the engine off. Ada better be there. And... she'd better be okay. For Claire's sake. For her own. For his sanity.

He leans back, pinching the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to block out the tears. The stress of all he's been through is getting to him. He leans back just so he can catch a break. Claire moans piteously from behind him and he opens his eyes slowly, remembering he doesn't have the luxury to rest. Claire is counting on him... he has to move.

He squeezes his palms on the wheel and opens the door, slamming it behind him and walks around to the back. Claire almost falls out from the seat into his arms as he opens the door. Her body hangs limply in his arms and he feels his stomach almost fall from under him, a dread filling him with how heavy she feels, none of her weight distributed by her own will. "Claire, hang in there!" he shouts into her ear.

She looks up at him, her eyes almost clear, wandering over his features. "I... uhhnn... try..." she mutters, looking away. She pushes him back with her hands weakly as he adjust her back into the seat and he notices how she turns away from him, unwilling to let him see her, her breathing more rapid and raspy. He understands. She must feel like she's turning into some sort of a monster or something.

He feels her forehead and pulls away suddenly. She's burning up. Whatever fever this virus is that hit her, it's killing her, cooking her from the inside out. She stares up at him with pale, dead eyes, her mouth parting, lips cracked and teeth yellowed. Her breath is already starting to stink of rot. Not good.

"Claire..." he whispers, gripping the side of the door. "I'll.. I'll get the cure for you. Just.. Hang on!"

He turns away from her, running towards the back entrance, the sounds of his boots hitting the concrete the only sounds he allows himself to hear. He ignores the muffled sobs he makes or the wet tears running down his eyes, a feeling niggling at the back of his mind which says he's too late. He stamps that feeling out, pushing it to the back of his mind. Ada has to be there, he thinks. She has to! For Claire's sake...

He burst through the thin, metal door with a bang, slamming it against the wall. A part of him remembers that the city is still infested with the living dead and he grits his teeth, squinting as he hears the moaning from a level below. It is loud, but distant. Lucky for him.

Leon looks around the room, seeing an incredibly large storehouse. Level upon level of boxes and supplies lie on stacks of wired metal several floors below him, the dead milling about on that floor, walking lazily, stumbling over boxes or consuming one another, mouths greedily chewing at rotting flesh. It makes him sick.

Still, he thinks, is this really a post office? It seems.. Too big. He looks around to see how he might be able to get down to the floor below and perhaps find the lab that likely is hidden away in such a place. A lab that may contain an antidote. It's Claire's only chance.

To his left he finds the stairs, or what is left of them. He scratches his head, looking towards the burnt shards of metal twisting blackened and broken on the floor below. Someone apparently blew it up. He sighs and wipes his brow. Claire is counting on him and he needs to find a way down somehow...

A motion to his right makes him turn quickly, drawing his gun. He notices a figure there, hidden in the shadows, holding its right arm. It stands there almost unmoving, swaying silently, perhaps dead?

Leon holds his gun pointed at the figure and begins walking towards it. "Hello?" he says in a low voice. "I'm a cop. Leon Kennedy. Are you.. Are you still alive?"

It sounds like such a stupid question even to his own mind, he thinks. But the dead don't respond like the living, he has found. Best to be cautious. Still... there is something familiar about the figure.

He walks closer, looking towards the body, seeing the slender, full hips covered by a dress in a dark crimson color, a dress that is low on the back with exposed skin and arms. The skin looks so pale though, but.. The person is turned away from him so he can't see her properly and he can't see the face either. Still... can it really be her? To have found her this easily? No way.

"Ada?" he says as he lowers his gun, walking up to her slowly. "Is that you? Are you alright? I came to find you. I need your help. Claire is sick. Dying maybe. I need..."

The figure raises her head, hair swinging back as she hears him speak. Slowly it turns it's head to look at him and Leon gasp. The eyes have gone fully dead, her lips cracked and drool spills down her chin, skin that he now sees in milky white in color.

Leon shakes his head, trying to deny his eyes as the creature he once knew as Ada Wong turns and shambles towards him, dragging her left leg which has an awful wound, a sore he can clearly see by her ankle, bone glistening beneath with shreds of flesh still hanging off it. She reaches out for him with trembling hands, her lips parting to let out a piteous moan and Leon steps back, eyes tearing up. "N-no... oh god. No..." he whispers. "Not you too!"

Ada Wong, the once mysterious and enigmatic woman, lumbers towards him on a broken ankle, arms extended, moaning. A zombie. Part of the dead who have swarmed over Raccoon City in mere weeks.

Dead. She is already dead. He is too late.

He raises his weapon, the tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm sorry Ada," he whispers.

He begins to squeeze the trigger, the bullet loading into the chamber. He shuts his eyes, preparing for the backlash from the shot when something hard slams into him from behind, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon. It fires randomly as he tumbles forward, the sounds from below suddenly becoming very loud as the dead hear the weapon's discharge. That, however; isn't what worries Leon. What does is the moaning coming from directly behind him.

From the corner of his eye he can see her pale dead eyes, sweaty brown hair sticking to her forehead. "Claire," he says, heart thumping as he tries to push himself back up. But he can't he realizes as her arms lock around his waist, squeezing tight, her lips pressing against his neck. His body tenses, waiting for the attack.

Shit, he thinks. He must have left the car door ajar when he left and now that he thinks on it, he didn't close the office door behind him either as he entered the building. She must have come after him just after he ran out on her. He should have put a bullet in her head when she nearly fell into his arms. He should have... should have...

Her lips open against the nape of his neck, hot breath blowing down the collar of his uniform. His eyes widen, heart thumping, body suddenly stiff as a board. Her entire weight is upon him, pushing down on his body so he can barely move, her teeth already against the skin of his neck. Any movement will expose him to the virus, even if he can run. "C-claire..." he says. "Don't..."

She blows hot breath on his neck, making the hairs stand on end and then lunges forward, hot saliva slapping onto his skin before her teeth sink into the meat there. Her teeth tear into his neck, gripping flesh and then her head is jerking back as flesh rips away from his neck and Leon screams, the pain a sudden undeniable fire. He can feel as that meat is pulled away, exposing bone, the blood hot and steamy going down his shirt. Claire's lips smack against one another as she chews on the flesh greedily before she comes down for another bite, this time with her teeth scraping against the bone. And Leon screams...


End file.
